Offshore active faults, especially those in the deep sea, are very difficult to study because of the waterand sedimentary cover. To characterize the nature and geometry of offshore active faults, a combination of methods mustbe employed. Generally, seismic profiling is used to map these faults, but often only fault-related folds rather thanfracture planes are imaged. Multi-beam swath bathymetry provides information on the structure and growth history of afault because movements of an active fault are reflected in the bottom morphology. Submersible and deep-tow surveysallow direct observations of deformations on the seafloor (including fracture zones and microstructures). In the deep sea,linearly aligned cold seep communities provide indirect evidence for active faults and the spatial migration of theiractivities.The Western Sagami Bay fault (WSBF) in the western Sagami Bay off central Japan is an active fault that has beenstudied in detail using the above methods. The bottom morphology, fractured breccias directly observed andphotographed, seismic profiles, as well as distribution and migration of cold seep communities provide evidence for thenature and geometry of the fault. Focal mechanism solutions of selected earthquakes in the western Sagami Bay duringthe period from 1900 to 1995 show that the maximum compression trends NW-SE and the minimum stress axis strikesNE-SW, a stress pattern indicating a left-lateral strike-slip fault.
